In re: Sealed Case (Grand Jury subpoena 26-GJ-00022)

Since President Trump returned to office last year, federal agents have increasingly demanded that social media companies reveal the users behind anonymous accounts critical of his immigration crackdown.

According to a report in the Intercept, in spring 2026 Reddit received an administrative summons seeking a wide range of data about one of its users who is of interest to ICE, apparently because they are a critic of ICE’s activities. Reddit informed the user, who obtained counsel and filed a motion to quash the summons in federal court in Northern California, where Reddit is located. Rather than fighting that motion, ICE withdrew it.

But four days later, Reddit received a subpoena from a Grand Jury in Washington, DC, seeking information about the same user. Grand Jury subpoenas are difficult to challenge, because Grand Juries have broad discretion to investigate activities that may be crimes. The Reddit user’s lawyers moved to quash the subpoena, but the district court denied that motion. The Reddit user appealed.

On September 2, 2026, we filed an amicus brief in the court of appeals, together with the National ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the Cato Institute, and Netchoice. Because Grand Jury proceedings are always sealed, we do not know the details of the case, and our brief was necessarily very general. It argued that the right to anonymous speech is deeply rooted in American history and law, and it serves critical functions—including protecting speakers from government retaliation. Thus, when a grand jury subpoena seeks to unmask an anonymous speaker’s identity, careful judicial scrutiny is warranted. The government’s interest in unmasking will not be sufficiently compelling to justify piercing a speaker’s anonymity unless the government has made a prima facie showing that the speaker committed a crime. Independently, chilling the speech of or retaliating against critics of the government is an improper purpose for a grand jury subpoena and justifies quashing it. Weaponizing grand jury subpoenas for this purpose runs counter to the grand jury’s original function as a bulwark against government overreach and should not be tolerated.

On October 27, the court of appeals granted out motion to unseal our brief, so we are able to post it here. The court of appeals is considering this case without oral argument. We await its decision.